Unlocking the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to create a better future for our coral reefs
Unlocking the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to create a better future for our coral reefs
Rising ocean temperatures threaten coral reefs, which sustain more than a quarter of all marine life. When the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF) faced an existential crisis that threatened its ability to continue to protect reefs, it partnered with Bain to create a sustainable plan to continue its gargantuan efforts.
Bain teams helped the foundation expand its reach and impact
The consulting, expert, and capability teams analyzed the environmental work required to restore and preserve the reef and defined new multi billion-dollar funding sources. They also reset the way GBRF works with Australian government entities, local stakeholders, and other global environmental bodies.
Bain teams helped the foundation expand its reach and impact
The consulting, expert, and capability teams analyzed the environmental work required to restore and preserve the reef and defined new multi billion-dollar funding sources. They also reset the way GBRF works with Australian government entities, local stakeholders, and other global environmental bodies.
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Bain Capability Network (BCN)
BCN team members help consulting teams with additional analysis and research. For this case, they conducted the primary research to help the GBRF understand its current state and calculate what changes would help it reach its goals.
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Bain Marketing
The GBRF story was such an inspiring success, Bain’s marketing team invited GBRF leaders to speak at a Bain offsite.
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Executive / Manager Assistant
Executive and Manager Assistants helped coordinate meetings, gather stakeholders, and support the research into environmental impact.
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Expert Consulting
Bain experts lead or participate in cases where their deep domain expertise plays a decisive role. For this case, experts weighed in on nature conservation, Web3, and nonprofit strategies.
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General Consulting
The General Consulting team led a 12-week project, working closely with the GBRF CEO, her leadership team, and the board. Bain’s Social Impact and Sustainability Practices provided expertise in carbon finance, natural world solutions, and conservation and biodiversity. Bain’s Financial Services practice provided expertise on Web3 and decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) assets.
Background
Climate change is threatening reefs around the world, including the largest one of all—the Great Barrier Reef. If predictions for a 1.5°C rise in global temperatures come true, nearly 99% of reefs will cease to exist, which could reduce ocean life by one quarter. And it’s not just the climate. Runoff chemicals from industrial agriculture pollute the water quality, and pests such as crown of thorn starfish feed upon the coral itself.
In 2000, in response to insufficient reef protection, a group created the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF). The organization is somewhat unique among reef protection organizations in that it has strong ties to the business sector, major scientific agencies, and Australia’s marine park authority. In 2018, the foundation received a six-year, $443 million USD grant from the Australian government. But now, with the end of that funding approaching, the foundation needed to reset and redefine its future.
There was no question the GBRF would need to continue its critical work. Mass coral bleaching events were making its mission ever more vital. To find a way forward, the GBRF board contacted Bain to help rethink the foundation’s plans and future ambition.
The plan
The GBRF itself forms an ecosystem that unites funders, researchers, and local communities. To avoid any interruptions that might divert that focus and talent, they needed to establish a clear plan well in advance of the deadline. They also needed a revitalized plan to protect reefs to an even higher degree. Bain teams analyzed the challenge from two angles: closing “the gap” between GBRF’s current preservation trajectory and what the reef would need over the next ten years, and how it could fund that increased scope.
They then turned their attention to the coral reef itself. It would require significant additional work to rehabilitate, including restoration, improving water quality, and managing invasive species—work equivalent to billions of dollars of effort. Climate change would only accentuate these challenges and demand ever more innovative thinking to tip the ecosystem toward temperature-resistant species.
The plan Bain helped GBRF produce would help identify new sources of funding, outline a more ideal operating model, and coordinate between the many organizations now involved. It would also refine GBRF’s mission and business model both at an Australian national level as well as for the foundation’s global activities.
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What interventions would create a better future for the Great Barrier Reef?
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What were GBRF’s starting capabilities, funding flows, and impact programs?
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What role should the GBRF play across the reef’s impact value chain?
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What revenue streams should the foundation pursue?
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What was the ideal strategy to achieve its full potential?
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What was the right implementation roadmap?
The approach
Bain helped the GBRF finalize a strategy for its future sustainability. The plan would increase its scale and impact beyond what it was currently able to provide, to meet the full challenge climate change posed. This included a full-potential growth strategy and business strategy based on Bain’s Radar 360 methodology, which helped the team:
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Examine GBRF’s point of departure: What’s the current state? Desired impact? Capabilities?
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Host ideation and ambition workshops with executives and the board
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Identify and quantify a dozen possible funding streams
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Co-design a sequence for the activity roadmap
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Articulate an overall strategy and needed business model
The plan helped GBRF tap new sources of revenue, including new approaches to public-private partnerships, new funding mechanisms, and more efficient direct funding sources. This helped GBRF leadership and the board realize that their aims were possible, with the right approach. “They really pulled our chins up," said one GBRF leader. “We were so focused on the micro and the day-to-day, and they showed us that the ending of the grant wasn’t the end, but an opportunity. They asked, ‘What do you see in the next two years that’s in your organizational DNA that will open the next horizon for growth?”
This work helped the CEO and her teams activate international philanthropic funding, launch new Web3 digital assets, and grow their corporate partner network. They developed nature-based solutions such as new globally marketed reef restoration schemes on private markets, and created efficient, government-backed initiatives to maximize “user charge” fees and government investments.
The results
This work helped GBRF establish a new reef protection structure to bring conversation participants together to deliver on an expanded mission. It improved reef management practices, reset GBRF’s engagement model with government agencies, and created a model repeatable by other reef protection organizations around the world. It also helped GBRF create a sustainable engine and define multiple billions of dollars in impact funding sources through 2035. After completing this 12-week project, GBRF can now provide for 40% of the reef’s preservation needs.
